


Conditional

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa, Fluff, M/M, Morning After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 15:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morning: when the light is palest, and the facts are inescapable.</p>
<p>[Canonsmash!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conditional

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phindus](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Phindus).



> I love Phindus. I love this pairing. I love writing pointless vaguely angsty schmoop drabbles. YAYYYYY ♥
> 
> …I do not love that I kept forgetting about this and left it until I was way too tired to edit properly. X'D

Alfons is used to sharing a small bed with a warm body. It isn’t until he’s rolled over and nestled in that his brain catches up—these are broad shoulders; this is a _long_ spine; there are no cold, unbalanced metal caps where limbs would be. This is not just a warm body: this is a large, whole, strong, firm, scarred, set body. It is fully-grown and solidly defined. It is radiating heat. It is extremely naked.

And it was unfamiliar until last night.

Even half-awake, Alfons is not dumb enough to think that going still can retract the abortive attempt at snuggling, but at this point, it can’t hurt to try.

No luck. That’s characteristic, at least; he can’t remember the last time he had any luck to speak of.

He scoots back hastily as Miles starts to roll over. There’s a cold well in the sheets, and his hip lands squarely in it—it doesn’t even bother him anymore, that Fortune hates him like a bramble in her stocking. He’s used to it. He’s just resigned. Sometimes he can muster a little bit of amusement, even—exasperation. It’s not so bad. If nothing else, he always knows to expect the worst, and at the rate he’s going, that very nearly makes him psychic.

He wants to say something; he doesn’t even care what. An apology, maybe, for encroaching on Miles’s space; an apology for waking him; an apology for presuming; an apology for dragging him here; an apology for being Alfons Heiderich, for knowing better, for still not finding a way to change. But Miles’s bright red eyes are just so _arresting_ that all of the possibilities tangle together and lodge in the bottom of his throat.

Miles has wonderful hands, talented hands—steady, careful, fine. The right one is reaching out and gently tucking an errant wisp of hair behind Alfons’s ear.

A part of Alfons wants to say _You know, you’re really quite stunning_ , but it hits the bottleneck and sticks with all the rest.

“I’m sorry,” Miles says.

And thus it is that “I beg your pardon?” is the first thing Alfons manages to articulate since several dozen _Yes_ es and a great deal of fractured cursing in German last night.

“To have put you in this position,” Miles says. “To have _let_ myself put you in this position. I should have done… well, hell, I should have done _anything_ else.” His fingertips linger against the curve of Alfons’s ear, whisper down over the shell, settle softly at the top of his jaw. “And it won’t take anything back, but for the little that it _is_ worth… I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” Alfons says. He clears his throat, clears it again, and again, until all the clutter falls away. “I… am not.”

Miles’s eyes soften, deepen, and crinkle at the corners.  He has an extraordinary mouth (some of the many applications of which Alfons has now discovered in considerable detail), which is even more unexpectedly lovely when it’s curling into a smile.

“I didn’t mean that I regret it,” Miles says.  “I’m sorry for the complications, and the restrictions.  And… the… consequences.  Whatever they turn out to be.  I’m sorry that this is all I have to give.”

Alfons lays his hand over Miles’s and presses the warm palm to his cheek.  “I am not,” he says again.

The smile widens a little at that.

“There is one thing I would like to ask of you,” Alfons says slowly.

There’s a twist to the smile now that scares him.  “If it’s in my power, it’s yours.”

Alfons learned that structure a thousand times—the conditional tense.  _If_.  Is it always conditional, or is it just always conditional for _him_?  _I could want you like you want me—if it wasn’t for the military, if it wasn’t for the General, if it wasn’t for this bastion in the snow that’s the only place we have.  I could love you like you love me—if it wasn’t for my brother, if it wasn’t for my dreams, if it wasn’t for the galaxy-sized gap between us where all of_ your _dreams gasp and strangle while the constellations turn._

“Forgive me,” Alfons says.  “But Major, what is your given name?”

Miles stares at him.

Alfons feels the blood creeping into his cheeks, but he holds his ground.  For heaven’s sake; they’re _lovers_ now, aren’t they?  At least by the strictest definition of the word?

“That,” Miles says, “I _am_ sorry for.  I forget that not everyone has access to the personnel files…” He strokes the pad of his thumb over Alfons’s cheekbone, then along his eyebrow. He looks faintly… embarrassed?  “It’s… Solomon. My name is Solomon.  Sol, if you like.”

“Good morning, Sol,” Alfons says, biting his lip on a tentative smile.

“Good morning, Mr. Heiderich,” Miles says, and kisses him until it is.


End file.
